Dawn Of The Bat
by Shadoukun1
Summary: We all know how Bruce Wayne's parents were killed and that Bruce became Batman to avenge them. The past has always hunted Bruce Wayne and he has always been prepared together with his trusted Butler and friends. But now, it s the time as he tries to hide his real past from everyone. The hell he lived through after the funeral of his parents when he got kidnapped by an unknown man.
1. prologue

"Gotham City..."

A City without hope they say.  
The city where you can light the fire and just watch it burn. A City of madness, where you can get away with anything. Oh right... this city can be saved and i´m the one who will do it no matter what it takes.

I've been there, I've seen hell and i know pain. You may wonder who this lunatic who writes this down is? My name is Bruce Wayne. I´m a billionaire playboy, heir to the Wayne fortune, head of the Wayne enterprises and the **Batman**.

I go under many names: Caped Crusader, The Dark Knight, World´s Greatest Detective, The Goddamn Batman, Demon Of The Night. Yeah, I got a lot of names.  
But i´m fine with Bruce and Batman.

Many people know my story, my origin of how my parents got brutally murdered in front of me a dark night in an alley, today known as "Crime Alley". We had been watching a movie called "The Mark of Zorro" my dad Thomas Wayne had always loved that old movie and wanted me and my mother Martha Wayne to go on it with him on the Night show. That night, everything changed and my life would never go back to the same ever again.

But this story is not about that, it´s only the beginning of the hell I had to live through after the days of my parent´s funeral. The first time i met the man who would make me a soulless demon of the Night. I never wanted anyone to know about him.

I've not even told Alfred about the whole truth. But now it´s Time...

- Bruce Wayne


	2. Thank you Alfred

With rain falling from the sky down to the ground you can hear so much noise in Wayne Manor, but it all feels empty. Cars are starting to arrive and people dressed in black are starting coming out from their big expensive limousines. Alfred pennyworth the Wayne´s trusted Butler is standing there at the door to open it for all the guests that have come to spend their time at the funeral that will soon be owned place in Gotham graveyard.

"Oh! Dear Alfred! Why are you still here?" says a man whose name is Rufus Terch a former doctor at the Gotham Hospital where Thomas Wayne worked before his death.

Alfred immediately shook his hands with Rufus and replied with his British accent.

" I am still in Service as long Young master Bruce demands it sir" Alfred replied

Rufus laughed and said "But my dear Alfred, You can´t take care of this whole manor. I heard that you have been begging to be the legal guardian of the boy, but don´t you think it will be better for him to be taken to a foster care with a foster mom and dad that can prepare him to take over Wayne Enterprises when he is old enough? I have found out there are like millions of families who would like to take him in." Rufus looked up to meet Alfred´s small eyes as he held over his coat waiting for Alfred to take it and put it away in closet.

Alfred looked down, and took out his and grabbed the coat "Of course I wanted Young Master Bruce to be taken to a foster care to find a perfect couple to take care of him and raise him just like Thomas and Martha would, but the families I've met do not fit in any way, they don´t care about the boy it´s the money they are out after." Alfred turned around and put up the coat in the closed together with many other coats.

" Well of course many families are out after the money, But Alfred I do not think the boy will know the different on that, he is just 8 years old sooner or later he will not even remember what happened in the Alley. He will not know any different on" he stopped talking and just glared on the look that had formed at Alfred's face when he usually had a very loose and calm facial expression. But now it was filled with Anger

"I´m sorry sir I must take care of my duties" Alfred turned his back at Rufus and walked in through the hallway up for the stairs who led up to the upstairs. The knocked on the door "Master Bruce, Are you done? It´s time for us to get to the car and drive to the funeral. Master Bruce? Are you in there?"

Alfred gently opened the door and looked in. Inside the room a 8 year old Bruce Wayne stood and looked out on the window. His eyes were filled with tears that ran down his cheeks.

"I´m sorry Alfred..I´m not done yet…" he replied as he tried to wipe away the tears that kept coming.

Alfred sighed and went to Bruce and sat down on his haunches and put his hands on the shoulders and said, " Don´t worry Young master, I know these three weeks have been hard, but now we must hurry down to great the guests, they are waiting for you and then we will drive to the funeral." Alfred smiled but it did no effect to the sad boy. " I see you have put on your clothes, that´s a start come on let´s get down" Alfred took his young masters hand and started to walk to the stairs but then Bruce stopped walking and turned his face up to Alfred´s and said

"Thank you Alfred….. Thank you for taking care of me… I do not know what I would do without you." ¨

Alfred smiled and said " I will always be at your service now Master Bruce"


	3. The Funeral

While driving to the funeral Alfred looked back through the rearview mirror to watch how Bruce was doing. Bruce who just sat down in his backseat was only looking out of the car window watching the rain that ran down from the outside of the window.

"Master Bruce.." Alfred started but stopped himself… to take a deep breath and then continued.

"Master Bruce. I know this will be a hard time for you. These weeks have been hard for all of us, but now when this is over we will take the next plane tomorrow to go for a long vacation far away from Gotham, it will do us both good don´t you think?"

Bruce looked up with his light blue eyes and nodded "Yes Alfred…that will be fine…" He said and then went back looking out of the window.

When they arrived at the graveyard Alfred first walked out of the car to open the car door for young Bruce but he had already opened it and was already out standing in the rain waiting for Alfred.  
As quick Alfred is, he picked up an umbrella and walked beside Bruce and started walking towards the yard.  
On the parking lot there was several limousines parked in a straight line, and people got out of them and took the same route as Alfred and Bruce went. Everyone dressed in black just like the one who was in the mansion.

Everyone gathered with folded umbrellas in front of the altar.  
There they saw two coffins lay side by side covered with flowers. Bruce and Alfred went to the front while the priest began his speech. The whole time under the funeral did Bruce not shed one tear. Many people just looked at him and could not understand why the boy did not say nor did anything. Bruce just looked straight at the coffins without even move a muscle.  
After the funeral was down, Bruce got to meet every one of the guests who had attended the funeral.  
They all took his hand and shook it and said "I'm so sorry for your loss. But it will be better with time we promise"

Bruce smiley replied "Thank you for coming here" but inside his head he had another thought "no matter what they say.. It won´t bring them back. Nothing in the world will bring them back."

As the time went on, one by one the guests started to leave and soon the darkness fell over Gotham City. The only ones who were left now was Bruce and Alfred.

"Please master Bruce we have to go back….or else you will catch a cold." Alfred did not know what to say because Bruce had just been standing there for almost two hours and the clock was approaching 9:00 pm.

The rain still continued to fall down over the ground and did not stop.  
"Oh master Bruce…" Alfred signed and started to walk away back to the car to wait for Bruce to come back on his own.

Out there in the rain Bruce now stood alone watching the dirt get washed away from the ground his parents now was buried under.  
"Why…. Why did it have to be like this? Why did you leave me!" Bruce knelt down and his tears got mixed with the rain. He started to wail up into the dark sky with nothing but sorrow, hopelessness and loss in his voice. He did not know what to do except weep…

"Stop crying boy…" said an unknown voice to Bruce.

Bruce immediately stopped and he feels a chill creeping over his spine. Slowly he turns his head to see who the unknown voice belonged to. But before he could turn, he feels that the man grabs around his neck and then lifts him up so that he cannot even feel the ground.

Bruce is stunned and can´t get a single word out of his mouth.

"Finally I got you Bruce Wayne" says the man and a big and lightning strikes and stuns the sound of the rain.


	4. How Could I

With the rain pouring down on the ground and a young Bruce Wayne who tries to fight a mysterious unknown man who appeared like a ghost out of nowhere. The man had a death grip over Bruce´s neck.

"Don´t try to get lose boy" the man says with a voice as cold as ice.

"W-who are you?" Bruce can´t even turn around his neck to see the face one the man. But he can hear the sound of the man´s breath, even his breath sounds different, so calm but still so heavy.

The man then bends over to Bruce´s neck and a small whisper comes out of his mouth:

"I can break your neck at this moment, without even having to push myself. If you just make only one noise, I will kill you understood?" he whispered.

Stunned by the man's words, Bruce nodded without saying a single word.

"Good. Now you will be coming with me, I got big plans for you." The man smiled and for the first time put Bruce down who immediately turned around to see the man. Even if it was so dark he could see the shape of a tall man, covered from toe to top. The man of course was wearing a mask, which covered every bit of his face. But

This was not like any mask Bruce had seen before, in the old movies of the Gray ghost that he had always watched with his father while he was alive. No this mask was something much very different, it didn´t look like anything he had seen.

"If it is the money you are out after just take them... they don´t matter anything to me." Bruce said

Then he could hear a fast sound and then the pain came through his head. Everything spinning around in his head as the man had punched him right in the face, so quick that even Bruce had not seen it.

As he falls down on his knees, he sees how his own blood drops down at his hands from his nose. Even after that punch who felt like a one hundred punched, he said not one word, afraid to be hit again.

"Didn´t I say to you to shut up? One more word and you won´t be able to stand up" he said while lifting up Bruce in his collar.

Bruce did not dare look into the man´s eyes in case the man would do as he had said and break his neck.

"I am not out after your money, I´m out after something else boy. Something you can´t buy with all the money in the world and I´m going to take it from..."

The man stops talking suddenly and quickly throws himself backwards without letting go of Bruce.  
And just few seconds after that, a sound of a gun shoot breaks the sound. And just after that a bullet comes though the night just in the place the man stood.

"Let go of him" Alfred said pointing a shotgun against the man.

Alfred had returned back to the car to wait for Bruce, but after a while he had started to worry about the boy and started walk up to the graves when he had seen the man lift up Bruce.  
Then he hurried back to the car and taken his shotgun that had kept in the truck, as he now stood pointing towards the man.

"Let the boy **go**" he said once more still calmed in his voice "or else I will shoot"

The man first just stared at Alfred but then a big laugh came out of his mouth, a laugh that is horrible to describe.

"You think that will scare me old man? I´ll give you one warning so you listen on it, okay? Don´t play hero" he laughed

"Alfred.." Bruce whispered

The man stopped laughing and took then his eyes from Alfred so he could see down on Bruce. He raised his hand and punched Bruce so hard in the neck that he even became unconscious.

"MASTER BRUCE!" Alfred yelled and again raises the shotgun "PUT HIM DOWN!" Alfred knew it would be hard to get a good shot at the man from this distance, still it was so dark and rainy and he could also miss and hit Bruce Instead.

"I will be taking the kid. But don´t worry you loyal dog, in time I will return him. And if you don´t want me to kill him you will do as I say" He said. And even if he wore a mask you could feel that he smiled all the time.

"Of course we don´t want the society to know the boy has been kidnapped on the same day as his parents funeral right? So you are going to tell that this brat is out on a trip to recover from everything that has happened."

Alfred didn´t for the first time know what to do. Although he was trained for this situation in his earlier days, when he had worked for the government. But now he didn´t know what he could to.

"I take your quiet speech as a yes." He sounded confident and started to walk with Bruce hanging on his shoulder.

At that moment Alfred saw his chance. He could see the man better now he lifted the shotgun and fires one shoot.

He misses….and the night once again goes back to silence except for the rain and thunder. The man is nowhere to see.

"Master Bruce…" Alfred just stares out in the night. "What have I done…How could I let him get away with him, HOW COULD I!"


	5. The Darkness

"It's so hard to breathe... I can´t remember clearly what happened. "

When I open my eyes I can´t see anything else except darkness... The darkness that will never leave me alone, not even when it´s bright sunlight.

Bruce Wayne slowly opened his eyes once again to just find complete darkness around him. He could remember that man who lifted him up, talked something about that he could barely understand.

"Where am I? How did I get here?" Bruce looked around himself but with no luck of seeing anything other than darkness. As he tried to make himself stand up he could feel a cold wind blowing in his face. And then he realized he really wasn´t home in the Wayne manor.

"Uh!" Bruce felt something falling from his head and when he touched it he could feel something warm flowing from his head.

"Blood!" he stammered and could feel himself shaking from the cold wind. What just had happened? He tried so hard to remember but all he could see in his head was the unknown man's masked face, and he could also see Alfred holding something that looked like a shotgun. Where had Alfred gotten a shotgun from he wondered.

"Hello!" Bruce yelled with hope that maybe someone or something could hear him.

"Is there someone there!" he yelled. But he got no answer.  
How long had he been unconscious he wondered? While starting to try to look around the place now that he's eyes finally had started to get used to the darkness.  
As his eyes open wide when he see´s where he really is. A large cave with walls that extend out into the darkness.

As he sees how everything starts to get much clearer and shadows starts to appear more. He is so stunned that he simply forgets how much pain he has in his injured head.

"How did I end up in this place?" He asks himself without hope to get an answer.

But just after saying that his voice gets interrupted by another voice who replies with:

"You are here because I took you here Boy." The voice says.

"Where are you! Who are you! Why did you take me here!" Bruce don´t know what to say, he looks around to see where the voice comes from, but in such a large cave you can´t really be sure where the voice comes from since it will come as an echo.

As he turns around to his left to once again try to spot the man he gets a big punch right in his stomach.

He loses his breath and falls to the ground with a thud. As Bruce tries to regain his breath the man grabs his leg and throws him up and down again. With his face hitting the ground.  
His head is already injured he can´t fight the pain flowing through his head. He screams right out and as the echo takes his cry on through the walls as he is lifted up again just to be thrown to the ground with a high bang.

" Please S-stop" Bruce begs. "It hurts so badly! My head is bleeding!"

It was the same man that he had met at the graveyard the same day when the funeral of his parents had been.

" You have been unconscious for over 5 days, it´s time we start you spoiled brat!" he shouts as he once again throws Bruce at the ground.

" 5-days! I've been asleep for 5 days? But why do this.. I haven't done anything to you?" Bruce looks up to the face of the masked man. But everything is spinning in his head again just like it did at the funeral.

The man looks down at him and lifts his hand to shake of the blood that has run down on his hands from Bruce's head.

" Bruce Wayne. You are already half dead but that isn´t enough. To get your revenge you must let go of your humanity. And to let go of your humanity you must learn how to survive on your own, you must learn to die." He opens his hand and takes a deep breath.

"I don´t know w-what you are talking about! Who are you?" Bruce just don´t understand what the man is talking about, half dead and lose his humanity? It just doesn't make any sense.

"I am the one that´s gonna find you. I will be the one that´s gonna guide you.  
You will never be alone Bruce. I will be here to help you on your way. Here you will face things that no one else will be able to face. Bruce Wayne will die here and a demon will rise. A demon of vengeance will be born for real." The way he is speaking. It´s like the Devil himself has crawled out from the gates of hell.

"D-demon of vengeance? Just what the hell are you talking about? I can´t understand what you are meaning!" This was really one of the first times Bruce actually used a word that his mother would have reacted to. As a child from the Wayne family, he had been taught not to use bad words but all of that had now been washed away after that night in Crime Alley.

When Bruce takes a step backwards he stumbles over something. Annoyed he takes a look over his shoulder to see what it was that he stumbled on.

With two black holes starring at him as his own pupil's starts shrink tiny out of terror as he watches the eyes of an empty skull of a human looking up at him.

The skull is small and in the size of a child, maybe 4 years older than Bruce himself.

"Oh that was the boy who was here before you. Such a shame he only lasted 2 weeks without food and water it was a shame, I really thought he would maybe be the one. We can just hope you won´t be such a disappointment like he was... Right?"

The man then turns his back against Bruce who is at the edge of to vomit, but forces himself to keep it inside.

" D-don´t leave me" Bruce whimpers as he looks after the man. " I´ll die if I don´t get a doctor for my head! PLEASE DON`T LEAVE ME! I DON`T WANT TO BE ALONE!"

" I´ll be back in 5 days. If you are still alive and not dead because of blood loss I will check your head if it got any skull fractures. Meanwhile the entire cave is yours to walk and do whatever you want to do. But I can promise you one thing; you will never be able find the exit so don´t bother looking for it."

Soon the steps of his are gone and Bruce is surrounded by Darkness once again.


	6. Why Me?

_Day 1  
Time: Unknown.  
Month: __September._

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I felt was the cold, that got hold of me and made me shake as an leaf, and the hunger. I knew that I hadn´t eaten for at least three days before the funeral but now it was hard to ignore, the hunger crawling inside me. I started to notice that I was lying on the ground.  
I could not first remember how I could end up there. But as my mind began to clear, so do the images. I saw the man who lifted me up and started to talk just some nonsense. The words are just too messy in my head.

"My head! Blood! I'm bleeding!?" As I put my hand on my head I could feel the warmth of my blood on my hand.

" I need something to stop the bleeding with, or else I might end up dying of blood loss."

My father had thought me that when you get a deep wound and no one can help you, you must treat the wound by yourself or else you might get an infection. My dad was.. A very good doctor, so when he had time he tried to teach me with hopes, that I would find interest and myself take over from him.  
I looked down at my clothes and ripped off my tie so I could use it to stop the bleeding. With cold fingers I tied it around my head to prevent any more bleeding, it helped.  
But the pain would not go away that easy.  
As I stood up again on my feet with my tie tied around my head and the pain pumping inside my head and my body I tried to take some steps but the pain of moving was too hard for me.  
I fell down on my knees and now I could not hold it back anymore. The sour taste filled my mouth and soon I knew that I had vomited up everything even if I had not eaten anything.  
Fast I wiped it away from my mouth with my arm. But eventually the smell got to me which forced me to crawl away from there.

I didn't feel any better, not at all. "Alfred… Please help me" I begged quiet for myself as tears started to come again. "What should I do!?" I tried once again to at least sit up which I managed to although it still hurt so badly. "How could this have happened? Why me, WHY ME?" I started to feel that anger grow inside me again..  
I had started to get used to it by now. It came sneaking inside my mind and filled me with so much anger that I didn't even know what to do with it. So it had been since that night. The images of that night started to pop up inside my head, the man holding his gun against us, my father falling down and how my mother would scream and then silent… "No don't think about it Bruce… Don't THINK about it"

_Day 3  
Time: Unknown.  
Month: __September._

"So hungry… I´m so hungry!"  
it haven' been easy the pain has finally started to fade but it still hurts if I move careless. Yesterday I really thought that I would freeze to death. But apparently I didn't. However, it was the food that now was my biggest problem.  
But what could I possible find inside a cave?! A damn dark cave! Without lights, technology, furniture, food or someone to cook it.  
" Is this hell….?" I asked myself thinking of how I earlier in my life had pictured it.  
"No… this isn't hell… this is much worse than HELL!" I keep laying down on the hard cold ground even if I just want to get up on my feet and….I don't know what I can do.

There is nothing here.. Just darkness and the cold empty wind, nothing more.  
I closed my eyes trying to picture Wayne manor before me. I walked up to it and opened the door and directly got hugged and picked up by mom.  
"Oh Bruce where have you been, my dear!?" Martha said while hugging him very closely to her and behind her I could see dad standing and look at us with a smile on his lips.  
"D-dad!" Just by looking at the eyes of them again made me feel the warmth again.  
"I am so happy" I cried while hugging the both of them again. But as I opened my eyes again to look at them all I could see….. was the darkness of the cave.

But.. it was just a dream I realized. I was still all alone in this place.  
"Am I really going to die down here? Without that anyone will be able to find me.. Just like that skull that I saw?"


	7. Are You Ready To Die?

_Day 5  
Time: Unknown.  
Month: __September._

I don't know what will happen to me? I know nothing at all, except that I am so tired.  
The cold has been there to keep me awake for so long time, but now I feel like I am getting used to it.  
I'm not afraid anymore either, not for the darkness or the sounds that I hear.  
The longer I lay still the more tired I'm starting to become.

"If I fall asleep now, will I die? Will this be over then?" I asked myself. Like if I would get any answer on that question, "Perhaps I am starting to go crazy?"

I've seen it on television before in one of those crime documentaries. I remember my mother would always turn off the television if any program like that turned up. She always said it wasn't good for me to watch those horrible programs until I was older. But I was curious to see what kind of program it was like, since I knew that my favorite hero _the Gray ghost_ used to fight crime and villains.  
Anyway in the program they showed an interview with a murderer. They said he was crazy and I remember I got very scared and my mother found out that I had watched the program, as expected she got very angry with me but not for so long.

"Perhaps this is the same thing that happened to that murderer? Am I now turning crazy like him?" my thoughts started flying in my head again one after another. I didn't even paid attention to the footsteps that could be heard from the distance.

"You're alive. That's good I guess."  
It was that voice again, the cold voice that came from the man who brought me here. I didn't look up on him to meet that face of his that still was hidden behind a mask.  
He walked too close to me so that his feet were only a few meters from me.

"You have survived for 5 days. That's quite impressive for a boy in your age. But you are too close to death….I would guess you would have died if I hadn't come now… But as weak you are now perhaps you are not the one I'm looking for." He said while looking down.

"Why are you doing this to me…?"

I finally looked up to see him while he stared down at me. For some reason I was not afraid of him anymore, I was rather grateful to hear another voice speak to me than the voices whispering in my own head. Even if I couldn't see his face I knew that he was disappointed in me for that I had not been as strong that he apparently thought I would be.

He sighed "It seems that you are not the one I was hoping you would be when I first saw you."

I could hear him slowly turning his back against me while starting to walk away. He would leave me to die, alone in this cave. I would end up like the other skulls and the skeletons that I had encountered while walking around here trying to find the exit.

"If he leaves… I will die…." My thoughts began to start spinning inside my head again and I don't know where it came from. But I could feel a new strength within me that began to grow, the strength to survive.  
This was the first time I truly felt like I was alive, and that I could not die like this. The police had told me that they would catch the man who murdered my parents, but I never really believed that they would catch him. I wanted to capture him myself and to do that, I need to live.  
I looked once again up to see the man slowly disappear into the darkness.  
He was my chance, my chance to being able to bring my parents murderer to justice.

"S-stop…Wait" I said those words and it seemed to work, I could hear that his steps had stopped. I could not lay down any more like a dog, I had to get up.  
As painful as it was I managed to get myself up on my knees. My whole body began to shake in pain when I finally managed to get up on my legs.

"I will not die…you hear me? I WILL NOT DIE!" I shouted against him.

He turned around and came towards against me. But this time I wasn't going to look away!  
"I'm tired of behaving like a small child! What he said was right. He told me that I would have to die to become whatever he wanted me to become, and right now I'm dying, Bruce Wayne is dying.  
It's becoming clear to me now."

"Your eyes have changed. You do no longer have eyes of a human boy. You can never return to have a normal childhood." He said with somewhat that sounded like pleasure in his dark voice.

"Indeed this will be interesting, won't it boy? You will not know my reason for taking you in until the time is ready for you to know. Meanwhile I will teach you how to survive, how to put away your human emotions and to become something else. The question is... are you willing to give up these emotions and your life for it?"

"Yes…." I replied him while still looking into his mask, now when he finally only stood 3 meters from me.

"Excellent. Then from this day to the days to come, you will call me by the name _Tenebris._" He walked towards me and put his hand on my shoulder and with a loud voice he said "_Are You Ready To Die!?"_

"Yes, I will be ready to Die." I replied.

_This was the start of the journey to become the one I am today._


End file.
